wednesday ◀
10.20.99 ◀
eight.a ◀
Students torn between two cultures grapple with identity
story by irina rodriguez
baike Ajayi, Lawrence senior, does not have an accent when she speaks English — yet something in the way she talks makes people ask where she is from once before they know
her name.
"I have no idea what it is — whether it's my views and ideas, different perception of the pop culture or my perception of the Black people." Alavi said.
Aajay herself has difficulty defining her national identity. Her family came to the United States from Nigeria when she was 11 years old. Like many people whose families immigrated here, Aajay feels a strong pull from both cultures and struggles with her identity.
"When I went to study abroad in France, I was perceived as an American, but when I'm among the Americans, I feelI'm different," she said. "I spent exactly half of my life in Nigeria and half in the United States, and I don't feel quite American."
"In history classes I can't fully participate in discussions because I feel I'm an outsider," she said. "I feel that I take naive viewpoints, and I don't have a right of voice because I have no personal relation to the events. My forefathers didn't live here."
Many people without roots in this country share Ajayi's feeling of not being quite American. Their appearance and manners might not stand out as foreign, but their homelife culture is often distinct.
Though Ajayi wears jeans and T-shirts like any student in the United States, and her relatives tell her she has become Americanized, she still feels out of place.
The Roeland Park graduate student was born in Kansas City to an American father and a Chilean mother one year after his mother came to the United States. He considers himself Chilean-American and feels equally close to his family in Chile and in the United States, even though at home he always sensed that they were not from here.
Lentil soup, a Chilean staple, was served at Marvin Grilliot's dinner table instead of hamburgers.
"Ours is a very Chilean home." Grilliot said.
illustration by kyle ramsey
Because his father worked long hours, his mother oversaw his upbringing.
Grilliot is a Latin American studies student. He has been to Chile five times.
"My life will always be connected to Chile and Latin America." Grillid said.
First-generation Americans such as Grilliot and their immigrant parents never fully assimilate, said David Katzman, professor of American Studies, whose research deals with race and ethnicity issues.
"Even though they acquire elements of a new culture, they also maintain their original one." Katzman said.
There is no common denominator in the ways first or second-generation Americans assimilate to the new culture. Degrees of assimilation vary with particular circumstances and characters. Some people, such as Grillot, return again and again to their country of historic origin. Others can hardly speak their parents' language. Some swallow American culture whole.
Katzman said that influences affecting assimilation ranged from individual, cultural and social factors to the parents' attitudes, the demands of the other culture and different life cycles.
"Some view the culture positively or negatively, some are ashamed and others are proud, and some are forced to assimilate because of the political situation in the country," Katzman said. "During the Second World War, nationalism in the United States caused negative attitudes towards Japanese or German cultures. Later, people took pride in those cultures again."
He said that adolescents, who were particularly sensitive to different attitudes and subject to peer pressure, tended to be more ashamed of their parents' different customs and tried to behave more American.
Recent KU graduate Lata Murti, who was born in the United States to Indian parents, said she felt more American than anything else, though she tried to take the best from both cultures.
"Learning your identity is a constant process, and you need to take enough effort to understand either culture before you decide
where you belong." Murti said.
Murti takes great interest in studying Hindu culture and religion, but she calls herself an "academic Hindu" because she doesn't actively practice the religion. She preserves many elements of her culture, such as an icon of the god important to her family, to which she prays whenever she feels especially worried.
Murti said that her background and dark skin often caused a lot of misunderstandings. When she was in Costa Rica, she had to explain to people on a daily basis that she was American even though her parents were from India, she said.
"Men saw me as exotic and mystical because my parents are from India," Murti said. "A lot of times they took me for what I represent, and not for what I really am."
Other misunderstandings new Americans confront are language stereotypes. Muri said she lost her ability to speak Tamil, her parents' native language, when she habitually responded to them in English during her childhood. However, people often assume her English skills are impaired when they hear her non-American name. When Murti worked at Southwestern Bell, an angry customer asked how long she had lived in the country because he thought she couldn't understand him.
Grilliot, whose first language was Spanish, said he was angry when they placed him in the speech therapy in the first grade because he was speaking English with a slight accent.
Katzman said that language was a powerful carrier of culture and that people whose first language was not English preserved a distinct culture and background for the rest of their lives, even if they adopted the elements of another culture.
"A lot of times they look down on people who speak with an accent," Katzman said. "But I usually say that it means that they speak more than one language, and it enriches them."
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